


we grow; it hurts at first

by cactuslesbian



Series: it's just another word for being afraid. [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Archivist Sasha James, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Worms, F/M, Gen, Gerard Keay Lives, Web Avatar Jonathan Sims, hair length as a means of articulating that ya gurl has Been through it, they;re all just doing their fuckign best okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23681251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cactuslesbian/pseuds/cactuslesbian
Summary: snippets of archivist sasha's timeline as told through self-given trauma hair cuts
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Tim Stoker, Sasha James & Jonathan Sims, Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Series: it's just another word for being afraid. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705783
Comments: 3
Kudos: 137





	we grow; it hurts at first

**Author's Note:**

> me, yelling at jonny: pUT gErArd BAcK,
> 
> anyway. there is timsasha in this fic but not a ton, mayhaps another time

Sasha’s hair is long and pretty. It’s been a defining compliment nearly her whole life, and she’d taken great pains to take care of it. Self hair cuts to maintain split ends and carefully applied treatments to keep it in good shape as she experimented dying it fun colors in uni. 

By the time she applies to the Magnus Institute, it’s back to it’s natural deep brown, almost black and down to her shoulder blades. She keeps it in a bun or a ponytail, but every now and then she comes to work in an intricate french braid and the girls in the office fawn over it in the canteen. It’s a lovely and welcome distraction from what waits in artifact storage.

The day Sasha reports in for her first day as Head Archivist, her hair reaches her waist when loose. She keeps it long, but never down, not when she’s at work. Her desk has hair ties and bobby pins and a spare brush but they remain unused, save for when Gerry will poke his head in and ask to borrow a hair tie. 

Tim comes in one evening to tell her goodnight before he leaves and when he sees her hair looking a state, he ends up braiding it for her. It’s the most soothing thing that’s happened in weeks and she leans into his touch. 

Months later, worms burrow into her skin as what was once Jane Prentiss attacks the archives. When she closes her eyes, Sasha can see them. When she takes her hair out of her bun and it brushes against the back of her arms, she feels them. 

Sasha James cuts her hair down to shoulder length right there in the archive bathroom.

People tell her it suits her and that they can’t believe she didn’t think to do this sooner. Sasha smiles and nods, says she simply felt she needed a change. She wears long sleeves to hide the pockmark scars that Prentiss’ worms left, not so much to be vain, but because when things brush against them, it sets her teeth on edge.

When Martin tells her he’s worried and wraps her in a hug, he gently brushes her hair away from her face. Tim keeps trying to alleviate things and it’s not working. Jon seems fine at least. Right up until he doesn’t.

The thing that isn’t Jon grabs her by the hair in the tunnels and prepares to tear into her right up until she begins to stab him - _ **it** _\- with a bowie knife that she still can’t believe was so easy to buy. She stabs and stabs and it barely does anything. Right up until the librarian intervenes and seals the thing away.

After Jurgen Leitner is beat to a bloody pulp in her office and she has to run, Sasha cuts her hair again. This time down to her chin. The cut is choppy and messy and when Tim comes back to his flat he’s only just able to even it out a little, but he doesn’t say anything. He does, however, agree to buy her a bottle of blonde hair dye.

It’s shortly after that when Jon comes back and he comes back wrong. Too many eyes and limbs that don’t move right. He sits on a park bench on a spring afternoon and explains to her that the Mother did not wish him to die at the hands of the stranger, so instead, he _Became_. Sasha tries hard not to cry, or scream, or vomit. She should be happy Jon is alive, but she blames herself when statements mentioning him start to come in.

Sasha cries against Tim’s chest for the first time and he holds her tight as they remain curled and tangled together on his kitchen floor. He runs his hand through her hair, cradles the back of her neck, and whispers over and over how it isn’t her fault. But she doesn’t believe him. Not really.

Nikola Orsinov and her nightmare circus come for her the next week after her talk with Jude Perry. She’s focused on the pain that sears her pinkie finger when the couriers arrive and hit her hard in the stomach. 

( “Don’t be rude,” Jude had told her, pinkie extended, a look in her eyes that made it absolutely clear that if Sasha didn’t take it, she’d _still_ be burned. 

Sasha didn’t give her the satisfaction of screaming aloud and Jude looked almost disappointed.)

Nikola clucks disapprovingly at the burn, mutters something about how she specifically asked Jude to play nice as burned flesh is harder to peel and she wants her new outfit to be just right. 

“We’ll get some aloe, maybe something for those stress pimples.” Nikola says, cold plastic fingers idly tracing Sasha’s jawline. “You’ll be good as new. Promise!” 

It’s Jon who comes to get her and she doesn’t know how long it’s been since she first arrived. When he enters, Breekon and Hope don’t even seem to notice him. He slices through the rope with a fingernail that’s too sharp and pulls the cloth from her mouth as carefully as he can but he still leaves a thin slice on her cheek as he does so.

She tries to walk and stumbles, so Jon picks her up and simply walks out without a word. The cabbie patiently waiting outside says nothing about Jon’s extra eyes, Sasha’s exhausted and bedraggled appearance, or the fact that when they arrive at the institute Jon simply slips an entire wallet through the opening in the divider.

Just before the Unknowing is about to begin, Sasha takes a pair of clippers to her hair in Tim’s bathroom. She meets up with the others with buzzed hair and grim determination that makes Gerry just the slightest bit uneasy. In this light, with bits of hair still on her shirt, he can so clearly see the sheer ruthless determination that Gertrude knew was there when she recommended her for Head Archivist.

her hair grows out during the coma, of course, but as soon as she’s awake she asks Basira if she’d cut it for her again. She does, leaving it close-cropped, but still just long enough to stick out toward the back. Sasha's hair stops growing after that and as much as that thought would upset her even two years earlier, it only fills her with quiet resignation.

**Author's Note:**

> i am,, making no promises but im thinking about making this a collection of one-shots related to archivist sasha bc she's living in my head rent free


End file.
